Month: October 2017

I have made some significant progress in identifying one of the lost NorCal Rapist crime scenes, and perhaps I am closer to finding another. This theatrical, smug rapist struck once on Halloween (1996) and another time close to it– a fit time for a masked creep who liked to play his own trick-or-treat with the lives of others.

Fortunately, his DNA was filed against (at least in Sacramento County) so that statute of limitations has been circumvented. He can still be prosecuted. And I hunt him. . . sadly to do so I must uncovered the strike locations, most of which have been lost.

As for EAR/ONS, I hope to have a few more POIs submitted by Thanksgiving. I have my own route for submitting my information to the task force, but people do contact me and on occasions when it is a legitimate concern over a POI I forward to them the FBI contact. A couple of POI are under scrutiny via this method as well.

Since I have made very concise my approach to the crime spree, I do my own legwork and investigation and I am able to submit any pertinent and potential leads I uncover. No one else follows my angle, which is good. Each has his own angle of approach– real estate, development, etc.

So this update is basically the gist of this post– all is good. The process of elimination continues. Between 600 to 700 have been DNA tested from about 6,300 or so POIs– if my memory serves. The others have been eliminated via other means. This is major progress. There is no failing in the process of elimination.

As I understand it, the FBI and Air Force are sweeping all Sacramento area schools, checking the records of all male students attending between 1968 and 1976 and comparing them to custody records between 1982 to 1986 to see if a name appears. Those that do, naturally, they will look into more deeply to see if this is EAR/ONS.

With the same fervor of Dr. Loomis, everybody involved wants to get this real life Michael Myers for all he did.

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

How I long to go on a junket– some Kolchkian pursuit on the dark side or some roaring adventure for treasure. But. . . I’m saddled here with EAR/ONS, and surprising headway was made yesterday in locating one of the NorCal Rapist’s lost cold case crime scenes. I just can’t let go right now.

As I’m preparing another dossier on EAR, I contemplate what could truly be his primal mistake. The use of various junkers is overt. The use of many ski masks is equally blunt. Military jackets, both blue and green, yes, we all know. Real estate connections– Seems obvious. But what is the subtle mistake that will sew all these strings together? It has been this one shifting element that causes POIs to rise or sink in importance on the list.

I don’t think EAR worked one profession, so that one of his stalking elements should be key to binding all these together in one person and revealing his identity.

Canals? I’ve often thought they were a primal clue. How do you find them? It is true that only a few times EAR struck a victim whose home was on a canal, but canals are nearby to many attacks and in many towns. He may not have struck a victim off a canal here, but did he begin his stalking from one and simply didn’t find a suitable victim until a block or so away? It would indicate he started with canals and hence knew these locations. This, of course, indicates access to civil engineering maps.

Is this EAR? He was seen on Heathcliff, near the canal.

Or our we letting our imaginations play hob with our reason?

I never believed EAR grew up in Rancho Cordova. He strikes in a limited area, and this area is a blueprint for his future attacks; he remains close to a main street into the development– in this case it was Paseo Dr. to Folsom Blvd.

I always agreed that EAR grew up in the East Area (Carmichael or Citrus Heights). But are we wrong here too? The logic is he knew the East Area. So it seems. But conversely logic would also say the one area EAR would not trike in would be the area where he grew up and could therefore be recognized while prowling.

Is This EAR? Or is it not even close?

In 6 years of investigating I have come to know the East Area, but I am 30 minutes from there on a good traffic day. Was it the same for him? True, EAR probed into the East Area, here further than anywhere else from a highway. But he remains around the main thoroughfares– Sunrise, Watt, Manzanita, Madison, Greenback.

Three times he stole a victim’s car. Each time it seemed to be after an impromptu attack. Each time in a different city, including Carmichael. Each time he drove it blocks or miles away. I have interpreted this as indicating he stalked from afar on these nights, so that his own car would never be seen in the respective neighborhoods. After an impromptu strike he realized he didn’t have time to get back to his car. He wouldn’t take the chance anyway. The victim might get free in the interim and call the cops. So he takes the victim’s car and drives it closer to where he had parked. After Attack 11, I think he must have parked it further than he had originally parked and then doubled back. The apartments at Great Falls Way are a long way from Grand Rio Circle.

This guy was a crafty little bugger, but he left enough clues that a viable list can be made of those within auto wrecking, including their in-laws, manager names, their children– anybody who could have worked more than one angle involved in real estate, used cars, wrecking. You’d be surprised how many had those connections.

As I am writing the dossiers and refining each one, I wonder: what is that missing element? What should propel one further up the list? I have POIs from the East Area, from Foothill Farms, one from south Sac.

I am as guilty as others in interpreting nasties. I threw to the top of the list RP (eliminated), and another I suspect will also be eliminated. Why? Because they lived single, strange, solitary lives. What if this guy is married with children? What if he became successful at something? What if he was a rich kid to begin with? Where was he between 1982 and 1986?

The only thing is the process of elimination. Sew as many of these loose strings together until they form the web he created, the one that ironically will capture him.

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

Four more POIs are being refined now in preparation for submission. I’ve only bounced around some suggestions on a couple of them, but the reports are being prepared. Any communication I have to anyone at the official level in the investigation is only over POIs. I think all of us are far beyond wanting to chat about little episodes or vignettes in the legend or reality of EAR/ONS. Unless they are relevant to developing a POI’s viability, there is no purpose to them.

On my own I still ponder who could know where the canals were. But when it comes down to it, EAR/ONS largely only used the canals in Carmichael/Citrus Heights and then the canal in Rancho Cordova. The first instance just indicates he grew up in the area and knew of the two major canals. Yet EAR did seem to know of the canal in Concord and Irvine . . . just more confusion. I bring it up only because one of my POIs has a civil engineering connection, and I assume CI would certainly know where the canals are. They would also have maps that show them.

People Mag recently released an article in which Concord detective Paul Holes speculates that EAR was white collar and in the trade of land developing. All theorizing is legit. The process of elimination will tell us the truth of it or not. I personally think that if EAR was as young as reported he was not white collar.

Only one of my POIs fit this, and his name is one of them I have submitted as a link that I am further refining. He was from the major car dealing and wrecking families but didn’t pursue the business. Instead he joined with Sacramento’s major land developer Jones, Brand and Hullin and then in 1979 moved to . . . Danville. He seems a poor fit, but as a link it looks good. It’s in-laws I seek, so to speak.

The network of auto dealing is vast, tied in with little and big lots, auto wrecking, real estate, in-laws and ne’r-do-well nephews. There is even a curious medical supplies wholesaler and health food distributor on the sidelines who may have had a connection with a used VW lot. Lt. Shelby thought that EAR was involved in some form of the medical profession. Polk directories are at hand, civil engineering maps, deliveries, old cars, auto wrecking, construction companies, and several POIs involved who look like one of the composites. Some kind of family member could move between the professions and then across the state, and EAR seemed to be able to do that.

For quite sometime I have been told that the map and school work paperwork was found after the attack on the first Danville victim on Liberta Court. People Mag repeats that. If true, it should call into question the paperwork. There was reason after the botched No. 48 for EAR to have made a mistake and left paperwork where he had parked. But there was no mistake at No. 43. Moreover, there was an elementary school right across the street. I think we all best doubt the relationship of the paperwork to EAR/ONS.

Many, many hours have been spent trying to find that crudely drawn community and then interpret the scribbles on the back. I went to court to find depositions by POIs (in civil suits) that might have the same handwriting. I found the Jens Milling family. All probably a waste, but that is the process of elimination. Many of us come up empty. What is important is that we continue to go on. In the Process of Elimination you must of necessity be wrong every time but the last time. The last time will come for the real life Michael Myers.

As a light hearted footnote for the weekend ahead, in my research I discovered that one of the sisters of those within the viable network of family concerns had married a man with the surname of Myers. Now, wouldn’t it prove interesting if brother-in-law worked for the family?

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

Since there are those who believe I have restricted information, I must preface here that what follows is purely my deduction based on the publicly available evidence.

This concerns the eye color of the East Area Rapist AKA Original Night Stalker. It floats about in the ether that EAR had blue eyes. This apparently stems from the 10 year old son of Victim 7, who believed the attacker had such a color. What shade of blue we do not know. No 27 said her attacker had hazel eyes. These are two extremes. Richard Shelby writes that Victim 17 said her attacker had brown eyes.

Since hazel has a lot of brown in it around the pupil, bleeding into the green, in the darkness Victim 17 could have taken these for brown eyes whereas in better light Victim 27 could distinguish they were hazel. Thus of the 3 witnesses here the weight leans toward hazel.

In my Portrait of Terror I followed the Sheriff memo and said the eyes ranged between hazel and blue, but as we see here there is reason to tip the scale in the favor of hazel.

Visually assessing eye color, especially in those circumstances the victims were in, would be difficult. Nobody should refrain from turning in a person of interest merely because of the scuttlebutt on the internet that EAR had blue eyes or hazel or whatnot. Let the detectives do their work. I have a fear that some people are so immersed in the legends online that they may refrain from turning someone in because the legend says EAR had blue eyes.

How we visually determine eye color and how a forensic geneticist would determine eye color are also different. Percentage of probability would obviously shift from one end of the spectrum to the other. There’s blue-green, there’s blue-hazel, there’s that pastel blue we call gray, there’s clear pure blue that it transparent like Jello, and then there is dull, opaque blue that is more like hazel. Visually someone might describe all these as blue, especially from a distance, whereas a geneticist is reading a code. What I say here applies to green, brown, etc. Even yellow eyes are a variation of brown.

The point here is that the overall evidence is contradictory when it comes to eye color. If forensic science said that there was an extreme improbability EAR had a certain eye color, this extreme probability is not so extreme as one moves along the spectrum to another color. Visually, however, a witness may still describe this mixture as a single color blue, green, brown, yellow, etc., but for me when a witness is able to describe a mixed color, like hazel, they got a good view. Therefore I tend to favor that EAR had hazel eyes.

If you have a POI who had blue eyes, green, or even yellow, by all means turn him in. Let the detectives process it. Don’t second guess based on the internet.

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

I suppose I best elaborate on here a little. I wrote and submitted another report, a 7 page thesis laying out the reasons to pursue another POI in the case of the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker. It did its job. The POI will be sampled for DNA.

I hoped it would be the last report I would write, but today I continue to write another report. There is no negative DNA match. It is too early to tell. But I am putting my ducks in a row, so to speak.

Sometimes I fear I am identifying the subjects of some of the EAR composites. I have canvased the areas in question so minutely, and uncovered so many weirdos (aside from those with the connections in the auto industry) that I truly feel some of these composites that circulate as a “suspicious person” at the time can be associated with a block youth who was a little on the strange side.

For instance, my latest POI fit perfectly. . . .But a color picture recently revealed his eyes are the wrong end of the spectrum. There is a chance, of course, it is him. Little more can be said. DNA ends all speculation. So I write more reports, each one on a POI with all the right connections and attributes.

The process of elimination works only if one accepts the elimination. Without doing that, you cannot move on. I can move on quickly now, one POI after the other. Each interpretation fits. That’s the problem. The evidence can always be interpreted differently. After the elimination, one must re-interpret and try, try again. We’re not proposing pink elephants and purple snakes here. Each POI submitted and being submitted fits in some way or another. Looking like the composites and being weird really isn’t the criterion. There are that many that look like the composites. There are yay so many who were weird.

It is the evidence and the clues that lead.

The EAR’s pattern in the East Area did suggest that he was returning to an area he knew, but didn’t live there at the time, at least not outside of weekend stays at a family rental. He would then have been outside of the dragnet. He would have been the unsuspected. The last POI fit that. For the POI just submitted, a reinterpretation of an individual strike favored him.

After Strike 4, an attack which was not planned, EAR steals the victim’s car and parks it a mile away. Curious. Why stalk the area from such a distance? Del Campo Park area is surrounded by busy streets. But what if he lived in the area and the stolen car was a red herring to make it look like he came from afar? He could then walk home and have misled the police. A wise enough move. After all, it was an opportunistic, messy attack. He may have felt he could be seen or traced back to his nearby home if he simply left and went home.

But EAR also did this at two other attacks– No 8 and No 11. Neither was near to Carmichael. It may just mean he prowled from afar. Thus there would be no history of his own car in the neighborhood, seen during the day. He stalked the streets only with all those other old cars. Only on the night of the attack he would come in close, with that VW. No one to see that at night. It was only heard to start after an attack. Since No 4 wasn’t a planned attack, he may have parked far away with his own car.

Possibly. All interpretations fit. One must simply go through the POIs and eliminate each one, each one at a time.

One thing is certain. You cannot be reactive. EAR is not on an old list. He was never suspected. Even his old neighborhood won’t reveal him. I was led to this last POI through my network of evidence. Only one person on the block where he grew up could remember a couple of vignettes involving him. “Weirdness” won’t reveal EAR today, as it didn’t back then. Many “weirdos” were checked out. Only the evidence will lead to him. He was faceless back then. He is faceless today. His true face is really a lot of old cars, dead license plates, and the ability (after the summer of 1977) to drive long distances.

I pine away over the evidence and the clues. More POIs are being prepared. One by one we’ll get to him.

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

Very rewarding Sunday gathering local color, so to speak, on one of my highly placed POIs within the “nest.” Today I must file my report. Hopefully, this will end it . . . or yet again I need to refine the others. Much cannot be shared, but I did make a sideline trip with an EAR/ONS researcher and we snapped some pics of interest.

The one on the header above is the bloodstain on the driveway of Victim No. 4, where EAR came from the dark side of the garage and took her by surprise, punched her in the nose and broke it. The stain next to it is from car fluids and oil.

I and the other EAR/ONS investigator were plunged back in time to the late 1970s as neighbors spoke. Some of the families had lived on the block in question since the early to mid 1960s. They recalled the panic about EAR. The girls could never walk alone. One spoke of how he was pulled over by a cop who merely looked into the driver’s side and said “OK, you can go.” When he told his parents that a cop pulled him over and he didn’t know why, his mom naturally responded: “Of course, they think EAR has a Volkswagen.”

Complaints about the old windows in the houses surprised both of us. “You could spit on your hands and use them as suction cups,” reported one homeowner. “Just place them against the window, push and lift and then slide them open.”

We assessed a house that could have been EAR’s. My partner was a little more bold than me and peaked through the cracks in the back fence.

After this we detoured to Crestview and visited a couple of the crime scenes. It was a lazy fall Sunday, similar to those when EAR prowled Crestview and made Del Campo Park a hub of his activity. Here he struck his first Carmichael victim along the canal in September 1976, then the 13th on Heathcliff in Feb 1977, then the 17th on tax day 1977 on Cherrelyn.

These two composites below center around Crestview. The one on the left was taken on Bourbon Rd, 1976, and the other on Heathcliff before Attack 13.

EAR or . . .not?

The word is that Victim 13’s husband left the side or backdoor unlocked after taking out the trash can. He cautioned his wife about a van parked in the parking lot of Del Campo Park and left. Apparently EAR then jumped the fence and walked into the house through the unlocked door. He took the victim by surprise at the kitchen doorway. She was so mad after the attack that she hit their dog. He was supposed to protect her, but he had not barked or alerted her at all– one of many examples where the house dog didn’t react to EAR’s evil presence.

On Crestview, looking down Heathcliff.

I had been on the streets before and throughout the park many times years before, but it was always in the present, not the past. Yesterday it was in the past. EAR/ONS’s evil returned. They still believe he is alive, and they still think he was one of the most cunning predators that ever was. Some still boast of bars on their windows.

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

I spent most of yesterday trying to refine the location of the first strike made by NorCal Rapist in 1991 in Rohnert Park, California. I ended up coming back to the same location I had marked years before based on a news interview with the victim. If this location holds up, we have a startling similarity to the location of NorCal’s final strike in North Natomas on October 16, 2006.

I visited the area of North Natomas on the 13th, just a few days ago, the 11th anniversary of his last strike, and drove the route NorCal must have driven in order to have been captured on the neighbor’s video surveillance camera.

As it stands I only know a few of the dates for the attacks, and only two locations precisely, and the Rohnert Park location is still kinda sketchy.

I know NorCal wore a skeleton mask at Halloween 1996 in Martinez. He wore another Halloween or Mardi Gras mask in Davis in 1997 and was captured on ATM video camera wearing it– even flaunting it to the camera.

This act in itself is illuminating. It tells us that NorCal knew he could not use a mask at an ATM later in the day and not be seen. More definitely, he could not use it later and not be giving away the direction back to his sordid lair. He had to use it shortly after the attack while still relatively dark and before he left Davis. We know he wasn’t local. He drove long distance, thus earning the moniker NorCal for “Northern California.” But he was careful enough to know he couldn’t give away the direction from which he had come.

Altogether clues begin to amalgamate as to his character. The result is we get a very nasty picture of a careful, arrogant, calculating predator. He liked to taunt his victims. But nothing yet in only the two strike locations tells us how he stalked his intended victims.

There really is no place on Ivycrest (North Natomas) from which he could have watched them. There seems no place on Parkway (Rohnert Park) where he could have done the same there. There is some other means by which he first saw his intended victims and then learned more about them. More precise information on location is needed still for all of the attacks.

There was once a website listing all the details known. It had been put up by a friend of one of the victims and then it was augmented by Victim 1. Unfortunately it is long gone, and no one has so far contacted me to fill me in on dates and locations and any details NorCal said and did during his attacks.

* * *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.